• Fierce fighting on the occupied banks of the Dnipro.
• Four crossings between Finland and Russia closed.
• Lithuania and Estonia send new military aid to Kiev.
• USA: Belarus involved in deportation of children.
12:22 a.m. – Moscow: “Kiev drone shot down on the way to the capital”
The Russian Air Defense Forces said they stopped a drone attack in the Bogorodsky district of the Moscow region towards the capital. “There was no preliminary damage or casualties from falling debris,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel. Ria Novosti reports about it.
6:15 p.m. – Zelensky signs new sanctions against Russia
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has signed two decrees implementing the National Security and Defense Council’s decisions on new sanctions against Russians. Three lists of 108 natural persons and 37 companies are attached to the regulations. The list of sanctions against people includes, in particular, the head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksenov, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov and the State Secretary of the State Union Dmitry Mezentsev. Most of the people affected by the new sanctions were also on Ukraine’s previous sanctions lists. The sanctions were imposed for periods of 5 and 10 years and include, in particular, the confiscation and freezing of assets, the ban on participation in privatizations and the withdrawal of assets on the territory of Ukraine.
3:20 p.m. – Russian drone attacks, power outages in Ukraine
Russia carried out a major drone attack on Ukraine overnight, hitting infrastructure and causing power outages in more than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast and north of the country. This is what Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 29 of 38 Iranian-made Shahed drones that took off from Russian territory, the air force said, Portal reported. In a statement, the Air Force said the attack on several Ukrainian regions lasted from 8 p.m. yesterday to 4 a.m. this morning.
The Energy Ministry said 416 towns and villages in the Odessa region in the south and the Zaporizhia region in the southeast were without power after the attacks damaged grids. This year Ukraine had an unusually warm autumn. But as temperatures begin to drop, officials urged residents and businesses to prepare for more Russian attacks. “We have no right to detente,” Volodymyr Kudrytskiy, head of electricity grid operator Ukrenergo, told Ukrainian television. “Certainly all of us, energy operators and defense forces, are preparing to deter possible Russian attacks on energy infrastructure this winter.” The Energy Department also said an oil refinery in the Odessa region was hit. The attack also damaged an administrative building and injured a civilian, the military’s Southern Command said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram.
2:19 p.m. – Russian Army: 75 Ukrainian soldiers killed near Dnipro River
The Russian military said it heavily shelled Ukrainian forces near the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, killing about 75 Ukrainian soldiers. The claim could not be independently verified on the battlefield. The Kiev army said yesterday that Ukrainian troops had driven out Russian soldiers from positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in parts of the Kherson region and established several bridgeheads.
2 p.m. – Germany, Scholz asks Putin to take the first step towards peace with Ukraine
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to take the first step towards a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine. “He has to withdraw the troops,” said Scholz during a visit to Nuthetal in Brandenburg. However, there are currently “no signs that this will happen,” Scholz admitted in response to a question about the possibility of peace negotiations. Putin “must not achieve his goal of annexing parts of a neighboring country by force,” emphasized the German Chancellor. The German head of government once again assured Ukraine of his country’s help in repelling the Russian invasion for as long as it is necessary.
11:28 a.m. – The increase in Russian drones and the threat of a power outage
Ukraine has reported a rise in nighttime attacks on Russian-launched drones, accusing it of firing 38 over its territory, the highest number in six weeks. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 29 of 38 Iranian-made Shahed drones – also called “kamikaze drones” because they were loaded with explosives designed to explode when they hit the target – fired by Russia. According to them, this is the largest number of drones that Russia has launched in a night attack since September 30. A power plant was hit in the southern Odessa region and the resulting fire was quickly extinguished, Ukrainian emergency services said. In addition, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Saturday that its forces “continue to hold positions on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnieper.”
For more than a year, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been holed up on both sides of the giant river in the southern Kherson region after Russia withdrew its troops from the western bank last November. Ukrainian forces have repeatedly tried to cross and hold their positions on the Russian-controlled side, with officials in Kiev finally reporting a “successful” breakthrough last week. “Our defenders are consolidating their positions and firing on the occupiers,” the General Staff said Saturday morning during a briefing on its operations on the east bank of the river. The Russian Defense Ministry also said it shot down a Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk border region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he expects Russia to step up attacks on Ukraine’s energy system with the aim of crippling the country’s heat and power supplies during the cold winter months. According to Zelensky, Russia is stockpiling missiles for these attacks. Last winter, Russian attacks left millions of Ukrainians without power for hours in below-freezing temperatures.
11.13am – 007 Gb, static front in Ukraine, heavy Russian casualties
In Ukraine, the front remained unchanged in the last week of the war, without significant changes, with the Russians leading offensives towards Avdiivka, in Donetsk, where they suffered “heavy losses”, and towards Kupiansk, in Lugansk, and towards the Ukrainians established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Dnipro River that the Russians could not undermine. Neither side has managed to make significant progress on these points of friction: this is what the British Ministry of Defense writes in its daily bulletin, citing military intelligence sources. With the onset of winter cold in eastern Ukraine, the British services assume that no significant changes are foreseeable in the near future and also point out that spy drones always play an essential role for both sides in repelling enemy attacks.
10:05 a.m. – Kiev: Yesterday alone, 620 Moscow soldiers were killed
The Ukrainian armed forces say they killed 620 Russian soldiers in fighting yesterday alone. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces then updated the number of Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war to 317,000.
8:19 a.m. – Ukrainian forces shot down 29 drones overnight
According to a Ukrainian Air Force post on Telegram cited by Ukrinform, the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces shot down 29 of the 38 Shahed drones recorded between 8 p.m. last night and 4 a.m. over several parts of the country during the night.
08:00 – The impact of the crisis in Israel on the war in Ukraine
(Marta Serafini) Deliveries of artillery shells to Ukraine by Western allies have declined since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. In particular, deliveries of urgently needed 155mm artillery shells have “really declined,” he said. Despite comments from Western officials, including President Joe Biden, that support for Israel would not necessarily mean a decline in attention to Ukraine, signs of this are increasing. Axios reported on October 19, citing comments from Israeli officials, that 155mm projectiles originally destined for Ukraine were diverted to Israel. “Let’s face it: the crisis in the Middle East is already having a lasting impact on our policy in Ukraine,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said in a speech on November 6.
Meanwhile, Congress has been unable to make progress in discussions on a new funding bill for Ukraine for months. And this is the news that really worries Ukrainians.
5:02 a.m. – Kiev announces “successful” operations on the eastern bank of the Dnipro
The Ukrainian army has declared a “success” in operations on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River near the southern city of Kherson. “The Ukrainian Defense Forces conducted a number of successful operations on the left bank of the Dnipro River along the Kherson Front,” the Ukrainian Marine Corps said in a statement on social media. “In cooperation with other units of the Defense Forces, we managed to establish several bridgeheads,” the statement said, adding that more than a thousand Russian soldiers were killed in the operations. The waterway is effectively the front line in the south of the country.